First brick home in county. Built 1855 by brothers, David P. and Jas. Logan Howard, settlers from Richmond, Va. The Howards made bricks with mud mill and later with a patented machine and kiln on the premises. (Howard bricks and carpentry went into the old courthouse on Square-- and most of the city's major construction in later 1800s.) Structure is iron-reinforced; has hand-wrought woodwork and oldest plastered walls in city. A frequent visitor in early years to this house was Texas statesman Sam Houston, a cousin of Martha Ann (Mrs. Dave) Howard. The home was bought 1905 by Mrs. *M. C. Dickinson, the daughter of Dr. Alfred Graham, a pioneer physician of Rusk County. To the original house, the Dickinsons added frame wing at the rear.